US military bases in Britain are violating international law and killing innocent civilians

MP Tom Watson is shocked by the government complacency over US activities on British soil which result in the death of civilians and serious violations of international law.

Almost all first impressions of RAF Croughton – a small airbase that sits amid green fields, about 20 miles north-east of the prime minister’s Witney constituency – are misleading. From the road running out of the nearby Northamptonshire village from which it takes its name, it is visible as a series of anonymous, barn-like buildings. An understated sign on a low brick wall and a couple of cold-war-era jets, no longer in use, would appear to mark it out as a relic; a sleepy airbase whose heyday has passed.

But scratch the surface and the reality is very different. RAF Croughton, which despite its name has in fact been a US base for more than six decades, is a crucial hub for the operations of today’s “war on terror”.

The US military describes it as the headquarters for the provision of “world-class … communications and global strike operations”. BT provides state of the art links between it and a US base in Djibouti, from which highly secretive drone strikes in Yemen are launched.